X-Men: Age of Revelation #0 annotations
X-MEN: AGE OF REVELATION #0
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Humberto Ramos
Inker: Victor Olazaba
Colourist: Edgar Delgado
Editor: Tom Brevoort
This one-shot is basically an extra issue of X-Men, acting as a prologue for the upcoming “Age of Revelation” crossover. It’s a 20 page story with some promotional material at the end. Since the story basically consists of Xorn narrating how this timeline came about, it doesn’t really lend itself to a character-by-character breakdown. So we’ll do it page by page.
Kindle’s page numbering for comics is still broken – it still insists that they start on page 2 – so I’ll just go with the story page numbers. (When does this Neon Ichiban thing start, anyway?)
PAGES 1-3. The Seraphim down a Quinjet.
Xorn. Our narrator throughout this issue is Shen Xorn, who’s been hanging around in the background throughout Jed MacKay’s run, not doing a great deal. We’ll come to why he’s potentially important to the “Age of Revelation” storyline.
This whole story takes place in an alternate future timeline in which Revelation has created a mutant nation which is in the process of reclaiming the United States. This is presumably the same timeline which we saw briefly in the 2024 Timeslide one-shot. In that story, Cable and Bishop’s time travel jumps briefly lead to them appearing in Washington DC in “the near future”, where an older Bronze rescues them from what she describes as a “War-Lock drone”. She explains rather vaguely that Revelation has completed Apocalypse’s mission, and then gives them a list of potentially significant events that might have led to this timeline. Obviously, by the nature of the Timeslide one-shot, most of this is just a list of trailers for upcoming storylines, but the final item on the list is “3K Gene Bomb”, which we’ll come to. For what it’s worth, Bronze also briefly identifies Jitter as a surviving X-Man.
Since Bishop and Cable are busy with another time travel storyline at the time, they ignore all of this and move on, much to Bronze’s annoyance.
Xorn gives us a much fuller account of how this timeline came about, over the course of this issue. However, bear in mind that what we’re getting here is only Xorn’s perspective, and while there’s no reason to think he’s lying to us, he’s not necessarily correct about everything. The script draws our attention several times to points where Xorn may be speculating.
Quinjets. The standard Avengers aircraft, but now apparently in use by the USAF.
The Seraphim. Agents of Revelation, obviously. Xorn refers to this particular group as “a flight of Seraphim”, implying that there are many more. Revelation seems to favour angelic imagery, consistent with his view that he’s the good guy (and with Xorn’s description of his power later as the “Voice of God”). The four Seraphim seen here are:
- Chrome. One of the founding Acolytes from X-Men vol 2 #1-3 (1991); he transmutes elements, which is what he does here. He died in X-Men #3 but presumably qualified for resurrection on Krakoa. He’s virtually a blank slate.
- Hellion. Julian Keller is easily the highest profile of this bunch. We last saw the mainstream Hellion in NYX, where he was a terrorist going by the name of the Krakoan, and then got broken out of jail by Laura Kinney. He’s not normally a villain, but he’s the sort of character you can imagine signing up for a mutant nationalist project (which is effectively what he did in NYX).
- Dragoness. A member of the Mutant Liberation Front dating from 1990 – basically a recognisable background character who’s never really done much of note as an individual.
- Strobe. Another Mutant Liberation Front character, this one dating back to New Mutants #86 in 1989. She was last seen in Astonishing X-Men Infinity Comic #20-24 as part of Wildside’s Mutant Salvation Front, who were trying to find a time machine to skip forward to a time period where mutants had already reclaimed the world from humans; she and Dragoness are fairly natural choices for Revelation’s forces.
“This land is the enemy of the human…” Due to the gene bomb, of which more later.
“The Revelation Territories, a land stolen for a second time.” The first presumably being the colonisation of the future USA by Europeans.
PAGE 4. Flashback: Revelation joins the X-Men.
This shows Xorn watching from the sidelines as Cyclops welcomes Revelation into the X-Men. Warlock and Bei are also there, though Xorn only refers to Revelation actually joining, and refers to the other two as his “entourage”.
X-Men #19 (the most recent issue) ended with Revelation, Bei and Warlock setting off on foot to travel north and find the X-Men, so this flashback is apparently what happens next.
Xorn references O*N*E and 3K as the major threats faced by the X-Men at the time, which fits with what we’ve seen in X-Men.
PAGE 5. Helicarrierville.
This seems to be some sort of shanty town built in the ruins of a downed Helicarrier – the SHIELD logo is visible on the right of the page. It seems to have a market of some sort, and Xorn has no apparent concerns about walking around it openly. See further page 8 below.
PAGE 6. Flashback: Revelation makes plans.
The flashback seems to show Cyclops addressing a meeting of the X-Men – from left to right, the first panel features Beast, Juggernaut, Ben Liu, Warlock, Bei, Revelation, Kid Omega, Temper, Glob Herman, Xorn, Magik, Cyclops, Psylocke and Magneto. (Jen Starkey isn’t visible, but it’s a crowded panel.) Everyone else seems to be listening to Cyclops, but Revelation’s mind is elsewhere.
Xorn describes Revelation’s mission as being “to ensure that it was the fit who survived and to ensure that the fit who survived were our people, mutants”. That isn’t actually how Revelation defined the mission in X-Men #19 – he just referred to making sure that the fit survived, and he was wondering about how fitness ought to be defined. In fact, Xorn seems to suggest that Revelation recognised that not all mutants necessarily did qualify as “the fittest”, and that he was trying to square his mission from Apocalypse with his desire to create a better world for all mutants. In Xorn’s account, it seems to be the impossibility of squaring this circle that drives Revelation to extreme measures.
“The least fit of his generation of mutants.” In X-Men #19, Revelation describes himself as “the least fit of the New Mutants”, because he was the first member of the team to die (in New Mutants #60, 1987).
PAGE 7. Flashback: Revelation “persuades” Cyclops to break out Fabian Cortez.
Fabian Cortez. Mutant power-enhancer who was a major villain in the 90s, usurping control of the Acolytes after Magneto’s apparent death. As Xorn says, he was also a peripheral member of the Upstarts. In the Krakoan era, he was briefly a member of S.W.O.R.D., and then went on to appear in Legion of X. He was last seen in the Sentinels and Mystique miniseries, where he’d somehow developed healing powers and was apparently trying to reform. The first panel, showing him in a SHIELD cell with Nick Fury Jr and Maria Hill outside, references a scene from the epilogue of Mystique #5.
Getting power-boosted by Cortez was traditionally a bad idea – in X-Men #1-3 (1991), his power-ups help Magneto in the short-term but make him weaker in the long term – but during the Krakoan era he seemed to be able to enhance people’s powers without ill-effects, so apparently it’s up to him whether he causes burn-out or not.
It’s not obvious that the post-Krakoan Cortez would actually want to help Revelation, but it’s not like he would have a choice in the matter.
Revelation. Although it isn’t spelled out here, X-Men #19 established that following his power upgrade in Heir of Apocalypse #4, Revelation can now use language as de facto mind control. In X-Men #19, he was particularly exercised about the ethical concerns here and reluctant to use his powers in that way, so an obvious question is what causes him to change by this point.
PAGE 8. The monument to St Cortez.
Revelation has declared Cortez a “saint”, maintaining the religious iconography. A regular narrative caption (not Xorn’s narration) tells us that the monument is on the site of “his rescue from unjust sapiens captivity and elevation to his holy station”. The monument stands in more wreckage, with ruined building visible in the background – a SHIELD logo is visible on some of the wreckage, so apparently this is also part of Helicarrierville (or nearby). Presumably this particular wreckage has been allowed to stay in place for symbolic reasons, given what we see later in the story.
The fact that Cortez is described as a “saint” would normally imply that he’s dead, but he seems fine when we see him later on.
Xorn tells us that the X-Men’s raid to free Cortez killed Maria Hill (who isn’t important to us). He also says that Magik died in the raid, but “the Darkchild did not”. The Magik solo title has made clear that Darkchild is Illyana – an aspect of her personality rather than a separate entity – so it’s not clear entirely what Xorn means here. He might mean that the Darkchild persona took over Magik here, or he might literally mean that Magik died and returned from the dead as Darkchild.
We don’t see Darkchild with the X-Men later in the story, so apparently she stops associating with them after this point.
PAGE 9. Flashback: Revelation takes over the X-Men.
Xorn tells us that Cyclops quits after the raid; that Xorn himself quit in response to that; and that Juggernaut quit in response to Magik’s death (the two do seem to have bonded somewhat in X-Men). The new X-Men team consists of Bei, Psylocke, Warlock, Revelation, Magneto, Temper, Fabian Cortez, Beast (in the field again, perhaps under Revelation’s influence) and Kid Omega. Artist Humberto Ramos seems to be under the impression that Kid Omega is a literal child. Magneto seems healthy in this panel, but he’s back in his chair on page 11. Cortez is wearing his Acolytes uniform.
Xorn explains that his powers give him immunity from Revelation’s “Voice of God” power, and that with hindsight it was a mistake to leave the X-Men. It’s not clear whether he realised at the time that Revelation might do this.
The building in the last panel is Philadelphia City Hall.
PAGES 10-11. Flashback: The X-Virus
A virus is released in Philadelphia which either kills people or turns them into mutants. The “X-Virus” then goes on to terraform the land so that only mutants can survive there. So this is a mutant-only part of the USA which is now growing.
Xorn tells us that the virus was blamed on 3K – he conspicuously doesn’t say whether this was correct. But we do know from X-Men that 3K have been turning adult humans into mutants, and Xorn points out that they had “previously claimed responsibility” for doing so. They haven’t yet made that claim publicly in the mainstream timeline.
Of note here: in X-Men #19, Bei says to Doug that “this is a Great Work we are embarking on”, and doesn’t translate for him. The 3K Chairman has also referred to their project as a Great Work, which may imply that this is a scheme of Bei’s, but not one known to Doug personally.
PAGE 12. Flashback: Revelation recreates Krakoa.
Kind of. Xorn tells us that Cortez’s power up allows Revelation to use his power basically as magic, giving instructions to all living things. He then uses that power to turn existing plants into copy Krakoan plantlife, providing sustenance for the new mutant population – this is Revelation attempting to recreate the golden age of mutantkind. Understandably, he becomes very popular as a result.
PAGE 13. Flashback: Revelation secedes from the USA.
Revelation refers to Philadelphia as “this mutant land”; the term Revelation Territories, used by Xorn, seems to come from somewhere else. At any rate, Revelation’s declaration that the Territories will not be restored to their previous state is the point at which he sets himself up as the ruler of a mutant nation.
PAGE 14. Flashback: Mutants flock to Philadelphia.
The assassin that Psylocke kills seems to be Bullseye wearing a protective mask (though it’s a bit unusual for him to be carrying a handgun).
PAGES 15-16. Flashback: Revelation nukes Washington.
In self-defence, to be fair – his response to Washington trying to nuke him is to get the Vanisher to teleport the bomb back to Washington DC. We’re told that Cortez’s power-up is necessary to let Vanisher overcome the shielding around the White House.
PAGE 17. Xorn continues his hike.
We’re told that the Revelation Territories continue to spread, that ten years have passed since the start of the Age of Revelation (“Year 10, AOR)” and that most of the eastern seaboard is now under his control. Here, Xorn does use Revelation’s preferred term of “this mutant land”.
Doug has apparently been added to Mount Rushmore in place of the human presidents, although it’s possible that this is another mountain entirely.
PAGE 18. Revelation and his Choristers.
The first panel shows Philadelphia overgrown with quasi-Krakoan foliage.
Revelation has reverted to the design he had at the end of Heir of Apocalypse, something that he had consciously rowed back from in X-Men #19.
The Choristers are apparently other mutants who are capable of enhancing Revelation’s power. Only Cortez is identified. The woman next to him with the fire in her chest is clearly Khora from X-Men Red. The other two aren’t immediately identifiable.
Xorn describes these characters as Revelation’s “inner circle, his most trusted servants” – which is interesting, since Bei and Warlock are nowhere to be seen.
PAGE 19. The Babels.
According to Xorn, the Babels are mutant and humans who have been exiled to the fringes of the Revelation Territories for offending Revelation, and who have had the facility for language erased. The art seems to show them being supervised by Omega Kids who report dissent to Kid Omega, but it’s not clear how that would work for people with no language, so perhaps this is meant to be a broader feature of Revelation’s reign.
Xorn tells us that the X-Men have uncovered some other lie which explains how all this came about, but naturally he’s not going to share that with us just yet.
PAGE 20. The X-Men.
The X-Men plan to bring the present day Cyclops to their time and brief him on how to change history – so it’s a sort of inverted “Days of Future Past” plotline. Xorn has been writing a book to bring Cyclops up to speed on this.
The future X-Men (other than Xorn himself) are:
- Cyclops, in a costume somewhat reminiscence of his Age of Apocalypse look. Heavy scarring is visible around his right eye – he still seems to be able to light up the whole visor, but in the final panel the left side is notably stronger.
- Glob Herman, in practical combat gear.
- The Beast, looking a bit paler than in the present day – this is a bit reminiscent of Dark Beast from the Age of Apocalypse.
- Magneto, out of his wheelchair.
- Jen Starkey, on the left in bird form. The design sketches at the end of the issue give her name as “Animalia”.
- Schwarzchild from the 3K X-Men on the right of the page – a particularly odd inclusion.
- Two unnamed characters between Jen and Hank who may be new. One is a man with wings and long red hair; he might be Icarus.
@Paul: AoA Dark Beast wasn’t particularly pale – are you thinking of Sublime-Beast from Morrison’s “Here Comes Tomorrow”?
Revelation’s “voice of God” has major Bene Gesserit vibes. I liked this issue. Interested in seeing more of the world building to come. 16 unique titles in the event is a little aggressive though!
Of the mutants who can power-boost, could one of the unnamed guys be the drug-addicted mutant from the first Apocalypse story in X-Factor? Not only did he have power-boosting abilities but he’s a good fit for an Apocalypse-adjacent story.
I’m looking forward to this event. MacKay has been one of the best writers of the new era (though there’s not much competition, especially with Lanzing and Kelly gone), and I remember fondly the original Age of Apocalypse. On the other hand, Age of X-Man was terrible, as were Civil War 2 and every other direct sequel event I can remember.
The other lingering question is how much this event will upend the status quo (such as it is) in the other books. Generation X came back from AoA without even noticing it (though that book had just launched), while X-Factor and X-Force used the opportunity to end on cliffhangers and make major cast changes after.
I was indifferent when they announced the Age of R, but as with Apocalypse Doug himself, the execution is more interesting than the initial pitch suggested.
Also, I love Action Glob.
I have a feeling that, much like Marvel was adapting Chris Claremont’s left-over plot ideas through most of the Lobdell/Nicieza era, this idea for Ramsey the Damned is a repurposed version of Hickman’s original plans for Doug Ramsey and whatever his vision of “Fall of X” would have become. Revelation seems like a reversal of where I think Hickman was going with Doug and Warlock, where the “Trickster Titan” would have been an evolved form of Doug/Warlock, and Doug Ramsey would have been in the place of “Enigma”.
I really want to like this event but I found this issue strangely both unambitious and a departure from pretty much everyone’s characterisation. I’m probably letting expectation be the thief of joy.
I guess what I meant, and didn’t finish my thought, is that I find Doug’s current role unearned, and it would make more sense if Doug ended up as on the side of the Machines during Hickman than this idea that Doug wants to bring back the “golden age of Krakoa”. Why? Because Apocalypse gave him a funky outfit?
“Ah, yes. The glory days of Krakoa…when the bald guy I don’t trust and the headmaster who allowed me to get killed ruled through Synarchist means. I enjoyed my time there so much I was spying on everyone. Yes, the place that declared war on AIs, when I’ve usually gotten along better with machines than I have people. I definitely want to fight for that legacy.”
Doug was one of the least committed to the mutant-nationalist cause during Hickman’s tenure, and after Hickman we had Krakoa begin to fall apart (starting with Sinister’s tampering with the DNA).
A lot of readers didn’t like that Xorn basically left the X-Men without trying to save them even though he was the only one immune to Doug’s powers.
“Doug has apparently been added to Mount Rushmore in place of the human presidents, although it’s possible that this is another mountain entirely.”
It’s probably another mountain- Revelation controls the Eastern Seaboard of the United States and Mount Rushmore is not within the Eastern Seaboard.
Regarding Revelation’s Choristers, one might be Scrambler or Amp. The other one has been speculated to be either Maddie or Topaz (Topaz the mutant amplifier, not Topaz the magical amplifier- why do writers at Marvel keep naming power amplifiers Topaz?)
“Magneto, out of his wheelchair.”
Or one of Astra’s Magneto clones.
“Of the mutants who can power-boost, could one of the unnamed guys be the drug-addicted mutant from the first Apocalypse story in X-Factor? Not only did he have power-boosting abilities but he’s a good fit for an Apocalypse-adjacent story.”
Michael Nowlan. I was thinking of him also.
If I was recruiting power enhancers, there’s also Chance from the original Fallen Angels series, who basically had “double or nothing” powers.
I’m cautiously optimistic that the event won’t suck. Not enough to buy 16 tie-ins, many of which are being done by writers whose work I don’t love, but the main story could be good.
I barely recognized Humberto Ramos’s work in this comic, he seemed to have toned down the angularity, cheesecake, and exaggerated facial expressions. His art on the recent FF 1 looked better than I expected, too. It’s not the style I want, but he didn’t ruin the book for me.
Having missed all of 90’s X-Men, I have no preconceived notions of what an event such as this might be or should do. So I liked the #0 issue, consider me intrigued.
I like the foregrounding of lesser-used characters. Xorn has always been an enigmatic favorite and, yep, I love Action Glob (thanks to KC for coining that term). My first thought reading the issue was that Bei the Blood Moon is the Chairman of x3, and Magik (also a favorite of mine), or Darkchylde, whatever the difference may be, must have a significant role to play at some point.
As a long time fan of Doug Ramsey, I liked his reticence to go full-Apocalypse/think things throug, as depicted in X-Men 19, so I don’t yet buy his decision to mind-whammy Cyclops into getting Cortez. If Xorn doesn’t think Doug was mad at that point, then I’m not sure what explanation can get Doug from X-Men 19 to mind-controlling Cyclops so easily. But Xorn as narrator may not know everything, and there are additional secrets coming, as noted.
Looking forward to this event.
I thought one of the boosters was Scrambler too.
“In X-Men #19, Revelation describes himself as “the least fit of the New Mutants”, because he was the first member of the team to die (in New Mutants #60, 1987).”
Not to get all continuity nerd on ya, Doug, but you weren’t the first New Mutant to die. Karma was the first Mutie to be *believed* dead (after NM #6); and the first one to ACTUALLY die was Magik, in NM #37 when the Beyonder killed the whole team and then erased them from existence. (Granted, you also died in that issue, but Illyana ate it first, followed by Sam and Amara. You were like fourth or fifth.)
“It’s probably another mountain- Revelation controls the Eastern Seaboard of the United States and Mount Rushmore is not within the Eastern Seaboard.”
Yeah, Mt. Rushmore is in South Dakota, basically the northern center of the country.
Not to bring everything back to politics, but the rapist-in-chief frequently talks about his desire to be added to Mt. Rushmore. (LOL.) It wouldn’t surprise me at all if this was a subtle (or not-so-subtle) jab at that.
It’s very odd that as a reader who gets upcoming story info from the comics themselves I had no idea this was coming out. X-Men #19 just tells you that next is X-Men #20, and this isn’t down in the X-Mentions checklist. When I first saw the cover I wasn’t sure this was in continuity (or replacing continuity or whatever).
I can imagine Doug having fond memories of Krakoa, especially since he was the one who prepped the island for mutants to live there. He was also the closest person on the island to Krakoa itself, the only one who could interpret its language (IIRC).
The loss of a high-profile role in the mutant community plus the death of his friend Krakoa might compel him to try to recreate that time. Trying to reclaim his central role in mutant affairs also makes some sense of the choice to become Apocalypse’s heir.
Has any of his emotional journey been particularly well told? Not really, but it’s there if you read between the lines. And maybe this event will explore Doug’s underlying motivations a little more.
—
I agree that Doug’s “least fit of the New Mutants” sentiment shouldn’t be tied to his (original) death. It’s more resonant with his fear of being the most useless member of the team, which started pretty much immediately after he joined it. His death dovetails with that fear, but the insecurity goes much deeper.
Dave-It’s something Marvel likes to do called a “shadow drop”. I guess they have done this before. Penguin included one free copy in each retailer’s order. Otherwise, it was announced to retailers a week beforehand, and retailers were forced to rush order copies to sell at their store. Speculators were expecting a huge shortage of orders as they were selling prerelease copies on EBay for $40 before Wednesday. The only hint given was by Brevoort in the X-Mentions where he hinted that a huge surprise was going to show up during July.
That “DC Crater” page is one of the most unintentionally funny things I’ve seen in a while. Guessing we’ll learn during the event that the District of Columbia was moved to the moon at some point before the attack.
Huh. That’s the Classic X-Men series logo minus the Classic that they’ve used on this cover.
If Doug’s face replaced the Confederate figures on Stone Mountain, Georgia, that would be an upgrade!
[…] AGE OF REVELATION #0. (Annotations here.) Surprise trailer issue for the upcoming event, which in practice means it’s a bonus issue […]
Amp http://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Zachary_(Mutant)_(Earth-616)
and Topaz https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Cynthia_Rossini_(Earth-616)
seem to be the most likely Choristers as someone mentioned.
Why doesn’t the remaining US government use Sentinels?
Moo> Huh. That’s the Classic X-Men series logo minus the Classic that they’ve used on this cover.
Yeah, it’s getting used for Amazing X-Men in this event too.
Brevoort apparently likes dusting off old logos. Pretty much all the FtA books reused old logos, even if the book had nothing but a title in common with the original use of that logo (the exception was NYX, where they used a logo heavily templated on the Steranko X-Men logo). Wasn’t even the “from the Ashes” logo itself reused from somewhere?
This continues into Age of Revelation – the X-Men logos are reused from Classic X-Men (Amazing), X-Men Archives featuring Captain Britain [!?] (Expatriate) and X-Men Unlimited (Unbreakable), for instance.
If the Choristers are power-enhancers, then the redhead in the group is probably Hope.
(OK, “probably” is too strong. “[M]ight be Hope” is better. MacKay does like his obscure character pulls, and Topaz sure is more obscure, but I’m sticking with Hope because why not you can’t prove me wrong (yet).)
I actually liked this issue and I’m very interested in this story. It seems like a lot of fun. I’m not gonna buy every book, but consider me committed for this storyline.
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Zachary_(Mutant)_(Earth-616)
>https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Cynthia_Rossini_(Earth-616)
•-[X]-• over on /co/ suggested these as some of the boosters in addition to Khora and Fabian
Is this the first revival of the Classic X-Men logo? Why choose this one for this story? Could there be a message other than the editor likes it?
I remember the first time the Claremont-era version of the Steranko logo was tweaked. First, during the Jim Lee era was the first time a character on the cover interacted with the letters when Havok blew to logo up. Then a few issues later they enlarged and elongated it. I hated the change, but it was actually a reversion to the larger version that had been on the Sterank covers.
Flipping through the contemporary books, there are lots of subtle variations in the foreshortening, the angle, etc. I always valued consistency within a title, but I like the subtle differences between them.